8 THE RELATION OF CHINESE AND SIAMESE 



migrants were growing great in the south and beginning to 

 call themselves Tai, i.e., "The Free," in contradistinction 

 from the races which they subjugated, the neighbours of 

 their brethren in the old home in the north were becoming 

 increasingly aggressive. A state called the State of Tsin was 

 encroaching upon the Ai-Lao in northern Szechuan. This 

 state did not represent the Chinese power in general, but 

 was one of the many petty states growing up within the 

 general region governed in a loose way by China. In 338 B.C. 

 this Tsin State conquered the tribe of Ai-Lao< locally known 

 as the Pa. This resulted in a gradual migration of the Pa-Lao 

 which has during the intervening centuries scattered them 

 throughout Yunnan and the country far to> the south of it. 



This second migration was later than the first by a longer 

 period than 1he American Eepublic has yet existed: yet it 

 was still a very early migration. True the Ai-Lao* had of a 

 certainty resided a long time already in their first home in 

 China : they had certainly been living in northwestern Sze- 

 chuan for 1900 years. And -it is almost as certain that they 

 had been there some centuries longer. But it will help us to 

 realize how early the date 338 B.C. falls in the w T orld's 

 history if we recall that Alexander the Great had not yet 

 entered upon his career of eastern conquests; the Romans 

 were at that time engaged in the Samnite War; and there 

 were as yet no intimations of the coming kingdom of Great 

 Britain and Ireland. 



It must be understood, of course, that emigration from 

 the ancestral seats, east as well as west, was constantly 

 going on in a larger or smaller degree. It will be recalled 

 that our authorities tell us that there was constant friction 

 between the growing power of the Chinese and the older 

 regime of the Mon-K'mer and of the Ai-Lao (Tai), both in 

 Szechuan and as far east as Anhui. This is the more credible 

 because such friction exists to-day. The Chinese call the Tai 

 "barbarians," with sundry uncomplimentary adjectives 

 attached. The Tai call themselves "The Free," and the 

 Chinese they call "Slaves." The "relations" between the 

 two races are not all pleasant, though Christianity where 

 introduced is a growing solvent. For more than two millen- 

 niums some of the best blood of the Tai has been absorbed 

 by the Chinese. But much of the best blood has shaken off 

 the dust of its feet for a testimony against the cruelly certain 

 growth of the new-comer's power, and a few at a time or in 

 large waves of migration, has taken up its bed and walked 

 south — far south. Yet we must remember that at the time 

 of this second general migration, the Ai-Lao power was still 

 supreme over nearly all its original belt across central China, 



